The story of Jiang Ziya

As a young man Jiang Shang went to Mount Kunlun and cultivated for forty years under Yuanshi Tianzun. His talent was close to ordinary and the immortal road was beyond him, so Yuanshi sent him down to enjoy such fortune as the human world offered, gave him the Investiture List, and charged him to carry out the investiture on heaven’s behalf and enfeoff the loyal dead once the calamity was over. Before he left, Yuanshi also granted him the God-Beating Whip, made for that work.

Coming down, Jiang Shang went to an old friend in Chaoge, Song Yiren, who arranged his marriage to a woman of the Ma family. Song Yiren advised him to go into trade; Jiang Shang first sold flour and lost the whole load to a gale on the road, then dealt in livestock and lost them in a downpour halfway. Both ventures came to nothing, and his wife began to complain.

Through Song Yiren’s recommendation he later took office in the Shang court as a lower grandee and supervised the building of the Deer Terrace. During the works he repeatedly urged the king to stop, and having noticed something strange in Daji’s appearance he contrived to make her show a little of her true shape; the king listened to slander instead and meant to charge him with a crime. Jiang Shang fled Chaoge that night, crossed the river and went south to Western Qi.

At Western Qi he lived quietly at Panxi, fishing the River Wei with a straight hook and no bait, sitting there all day. Fishermen and woodcutters laughed at him for a fool; he paid no attention and waited only for the one he was meant to meet.

Ji Chang, Earl of the West, met him while hunting by the River Wei, spoke with him, thought his ability profound, and pulled his own carriage to invite him. Ji Chang then made Jiang Shang chancellor of the right and put the whole civil and military business of Western Qi in his hands; Jiang Shang reformed the government, drilled the troops and gathered able men.

After Ji Chang’s death Jiang Shang went on serving Ji Fa, campaigning against Chong Houhu, Mixu and other unsteady lords, and helping to build the Numinous Terrace and settle the people, storing up strength for the eastern advance to come.

As King Zhou grew more brutal, Jiang Shang was ordered to raise an army against him, and Yuanshi Tianzun granted him the mount Sibuxiang for the campaign. As the Zhou army came out through the passes, the Shang general Zhang Guifang beat officer after officer with his art of calling names to unhorse them, and only when Jiang Shang went out himself was he checked.

The army reached Chuanyun, Lintong and Sishui passes, where Wen Zhong called in the Ten Heavenly Lords to set out the Ten Absolutes — Heaven Absolute, Earth Fierce, Wind Howl, Cold Ice, Golden Light, Blood-Transforming, Raging Flame, Soul-Scattering, Red Water and Red Sand, one after another. Jiang Shang, together with the Chan disciples Guangchengzi, Chijingzi, Huanglong Zhenren and the rest, broke them one by one.

Deng Chanyu, daughter of Deng Jiugong of Jiameng Pass, wounded several Zhou officers with her five-light stones, and Jiang Shang sent Tu Xingsun and Juliusun to negotiate, so that father and daughter at last came over to Western Qi. The Shang generals Zheng Lun, who took Zhou officers with the white light from his nose, and Chen Qi, who answered him with yellow vapour from his mouth, fought several times and both died in the end, and were afterwards invested together as the two guardians of the Buddhist mountain gate.

When Zhao Gongming came down to help Shang, he bound Jiang Shang with the dragon-binding cord and struck him senseless with the Sea-Stilling Pearls; Jiang Shang stopped breathing for a time and was revived only by an elixir. Not long after, Zhao Gongming himself died under Luya’s Seven-Arrow Book of Nails.

Yunxiao, Qiongxiao and Bixiao then set out the Nine-Bend Yellow River Formation. Yunxiao took Jiang Shang and the officers of the Zhou camp into the Hunyuan Golden Dipper several times over, and used it to strip the three flowers from the crowns of the Twelve Golden Immortals and close the five breaths in their breasts; the Zhou army lost heavily until Laozi and Yuanshi Tianzun came in person and broke the formation.

To avenge his disciples, Tongtian Jiaozhu set out the Zhuxian and the Ten Thousand Immortals formations himself. The saints of the three teachings all came before them, and Jiang Shang moved with the army through it all, seeing the formations broken and the Jie disciples scattered.

The army crossed at Mengjin, the lords of every quarter met and answered the call, and Jiang Shang led the host east across the river, breaking the passes held by Deng Jiugong, Lu Xiong and other Shang generals on the way, until he reached Chaoge. At Muye the Shang front turned its weapons about; King Zhou climbed the Deer Terrace and burned himself, Shang fell, and Jiang Shang led the army into the city, calmed the people and took the archives and treasuries into custody.

When the war was over, Jiang Shang climbed the investiture terrace, unrolled the Investiture List, and called and enfeoffed the fallen in order — Wen Zhong, Zhao Gongming, the Three Xiao and the rest — assigning them the thunder department, the wealth offices and the departments of response, so that the posts of the Heavenly Court were filled.

With the investiture done, Jiang Shang returned to Haojing with Ji Fa and helped enfeoff the lords of the realm; he himself received the land of Qi and took up his state at Yingqiu. The woman of the Ma family, who had remarried, was also on the list read at the terrace and was invested as the Broom Star, and the old company of Western Qi dispersed to their own places.